The Development of the Sciences
Most of the sciences had precursors in superstition and magic. These outdated ideas continue to plague the sciences. Astrology came before astronomy, alchemy preceded chemistry, shamans tried to heal before there was medicine, and pantheons of gods and goddesses took charge of every mysterious phenomenon before cosmology was a science. There were fertility rituals before science discovered agricultural fertilization and assisted reproduction.
The first stage in the history of a science is descriptive. The scientific facts come from careful observation. For example, many medicines owe their discovery to careful classification of the beneficial effects of various herbs. Later, experimenters arrange to make their observations under controlled conditions. Analysis of experimental data helps to form mathematical models. The models develop into a body of theory. At a certain stage of development, theory can occasionally predict previously unobserved phenomena. Theory, full grown, leads to the uniform treatment of a wide range of seemingly diverse phenomena. In physics this last stage, the era of unification theories, is the most recent development.
Physics, chemistry, biology, social sciences, and psychology are all at different stages of development in the scheme outlined above. They also progress at different rates, allowing of course for growth spurts when great scientists arise.
Biology is not yet as precise a science as physics or chemistry. Some of its branches, like genome sequencing, are advancing rapidly toward greater precision. Talented biologists are working on provable hypotheses and quantitative experiments, not description and speculation. They now make computer simulations and do meaningful experiments to confirm their hypotheses before publication. Darwinism, however, remains where it began, in the 19th-century descriptive phase. The so-called “theory of evolution” is no more than a set of plausibility arguments.
Darwinists propose the spontaneous growth of unplanned complexity. Their proposal is incompatible with the known laws of physics. The most general physical law relevant to the Darwinist notion is the second law of thermodynamics. In later chapters we will study how the second law applies to living systems. The precision sciences of thermodynamics and information theory exclude the spontaneous production of information.
The first stage in the history of a science is descriptive. The scientific facts come from careful observation. For example, many medicines owe their discovery to careful classification of the beneficial effects of various herbs. Later, experimenters arrange to make their observations under controlled conditions. Analysis of experimental data helps to form mathematical models. The models develop into a body of theory. At a certain stage of development, theory can occasionally predict previously unobserved phenomena. Theory, full grown, leads to the uniform treatment of a wide range of seemingly diverse phenomena. In physics this last stage, the era of unification theories, is the most recent development.
Physics, chemistry, biology, social sciences, and psychology are all at different stages of development in the scheme outlined above. They also progress at different rates, allowing of course for growth spurts when great scientists arise.
Biology is not yet as precise a science as physics or chemistry. Some of its branches, like genome sequencing, are advancing rapidly toward greater precision. Talented biologists are working on provable hypotheses and quantitative experiments, not description and speculation. They now make computer simulations and do meaningful experiments to confirm their hypotheses before publication. Darwinism, however, remains where it began, in the 19th-century descriptive phase. The so-called “theory of evolution” is no more than a set of plausibility arguments.
Darwinists propose the spontaneous growth of unplanned complexity. Their proposal is incompatible with the known laws of physics. The most general physical law relevant to the Darwinist notion is the second law of thermodynamics. In later chapters we will study how the second law applies to living systems. The precision sciences of thermodynamics and information theory exclude the spontaneous production of information.
